


Giselle

by apparitionism



Series: Giselle [1]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, F/F, S5 fixit, West Wing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's fix this nonsense. In that endeavor, one will obviously need some backup, so here’s the Bartlet Administration for your trouble. Welcome to the West Wing crossover fixit for Warehouse 13 S5. Also S4, differently than Boone, et cetera.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m afraid there’s been a terrible misunderstanding,” Helena said.

“Did you know,” said Josh, “that writers used to get paid by the word?”

“Yes, I did know that. In fact, I still do know that.”

“Because it just got real clear, H.G., that you get paid by the understatement. Because: a _misunderstanding_?”

“I said it was a _terrible_ misunderstanding,” Helena pointed out.

“It’s not a misunderstanding! It’s a _catastrophe_!”

“It is most certainly not a catastrophe! Not yet, at any rate, and perhaps not at all, if you would simply _listen to me_!”

C.J. said, “Could you both just agree to give it a different name? How about… I don’t know, ‘Giselle’?”

Josh sighed. “You are just never gonna let that go, are you?”

“No. No I am not.”

Helena said, “All right then, I’m afraid there’s been a terrible _Giselle_.”

“I saw a terrible Giselle once,” C.J. said. “My parents took me to the Dayton Ballet when I was little. Josh, you made your debut in that, didn’t you?”

Josh looked pained, C.J. shrugged as if to say “if she tees it up…”, and Helena put her head in her hands.

****

Helena first visited the White House as a hologram—although whether one could with accuracy call any such nonmaterial outing a “visit,” she was unsure. She had yet to become accustomed to her consciousness seemingly springing into being, or _back_ into being; thus becoming sensate disoriented her momentarily.

She realized first that she was in an extremely ornate conference room of some kind. Then she realized that the faces in that room were familiar: there was Mrs. Frederic, of course; Helena had yet to materialize anywhere without Mrs. Frederic in attendance. But the others she recognized from newspapers, television, computer screens. C.J. Cregg, the White House Press Secretary. Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff. Josh Lyman, McGarry’s deputy. One man she did not know, but he resembled Artie a bit: a similarly sour countenance, and quite similar facial hair.

All the non–Mrs. Frederic faces were now staring at Helena. “Hello,” she said.

After a long moment, Josh was the first to speak. “Yeah,” he said. “Hi? So… H.G. Wells? Are you serious?”

“Usually,” Helena said. “I make the occasional joke.”

Mrs. Frederic frowned.

“Josh,” said the Artie-like man, “this is not a surprise. We were all read in on the Warehouse when we got here.”

“Yeah, but Toby, I thought it was mostly some freaky Area-51-style cult thing. Didn’t you think that? Seriously, H.G. Wells. H.G. _Wells_.”

Mrs. Frederic said, “Saying her name repeatedly will not change the situation, Mr. Lyman.”

“H.G. _Wells_ ,” Josh said again. “And she’s really a she, and she really tried to end the world?”

“Start a new ice age,” Helena said.

Mrs. Frederic frowned again.

Helena said, “But I concede that that is a distinction without a difference.”

“In any event,” Mrs. Frederic said, “she did not carry out her plan. Obviously.”

Josh said, “Seems like a pretty serious plan. I mean, once you commit. What happened?”

Mrs. Frederic was silent. She clearly expected Helena to answer. What happened? Myka Bering. A gun. A gun, and Myka Bering, and a hundred years of a train gathering speed, chasing Helena’s reason, running away with it… but then Myka Bering. A gun, and Myka Bering, and the train crashed.

Helena said, “An agent stopped me.”

Josh declared, “We should send him something. A medal?”

“Her,” Helena and Mrs. Frederic said at the same time.

“Flowers,” Josh amended.

C.J. Cregg spoke for the first time. “Yes, Josh. Flowers. Because nothing says ‘thanks for saving the world, Agent whoever—’”

“Bering,” Helena and Mrs. Frederic said.

“Agent Bering,” C.J. nodded, “better than some pretty flowers. Don’t they give flowers to _ballerinas_?”

“If you could _let it go_ ,” Josh said. “I was _four_.”

“—ty-two,” C.J. added.

“She should receive a medal,” Helena said softly.

This got her an appraising look from C.J.

Leo said, “Okay. Enough with everybody being surprised and sending out medals and flowers. You can talk to FTD on your own time. The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Frederic thinks we’re going to need Ms. Wells’s help at a certain point, or certain points, I don’t really know, because she’s being _cryptic_ about it, just like she was about this Yellowstone business before it happened.”

“The Yellowstone incident was unfortunate,” Mrs. Frederic allowed.

Leo snorted. “You bet it was unfortunate. I wish you’d consulted me beforehand about setting those wildfires to cover up all the activity. We could have saved the President some headaches.”

“Mr. McGarry,” Mrs. Frederic said, “The nature of Warehouse business is such that there is rarely time for _consultation_. I merely have a sense about certain things.”

“Okay, then a heads-up. Could we maybe put me on a more frequent heads-up schedule?”

“That is what I am doing now.”

Josh asked, “But what’s the heads-up _about_?”

“My sense of certain things.”

“So,” said the Artie figure—Toby?—“you had a sense that we needed to meet a hologram of H.G. Wells.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Frederic said.

“Okay,” he said. “Hi, hologram of H.G. Wells. I’m Toby Ziegler. I’m the White House Communications Director. And now I have to go have a meeting with some people who actually have things to _communicate_!” He stood up and stalked out.

Helena reflected that he really was _quite_ Artie-esque.

The rest of them did not move from their seats. Helena continued to stand. She had discovered upon first appearing as a hologram that she could do nothing _but_ stand; she had a sense of her body _as_ a body, but she could not interact with the physical world, other than to produce a facsimile of walking. She had discovered also that she generally did not have conscious time to waste on wondering why that was possible, or indeed on wondering anything at all. A hundred years of nothing but continuous thought replaced by intermittent snatches…. and then she realized that she had inadvertently fallen into woolgathering again.

C.J. was looking at her. C.J. Cregg: a tall, competent, accomplished woman. Helena tried very hard not to follow that thought where it wanted to go. “So H.G. Wells is a woman,” C.J. said.

So much for not following the thought. Helena sighed and said, “I regret, not a very good one.”

Leo said, “Well, if you’re useful, I don’t really care how good you are. Mrs. Frederic, you’ll let me know when there’s something else you don’t want to actually give me a heads-up about?”

Mrs. Frederic nodded.

“That’s great. So I’ll see you at some unspecified point in the future.” He departed, although far less indignantly than Toby had done.

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Yeah. I’m just gonna—yeah.” And he abruptly left as well.

“Ms. Cregg,” Mrs. Frederic said.

“Mrs. Frederic,” C.J. answered.

“I don’t envy you your job. And I apologize for the fact that my agents occasionally make it more difficult.”

“I just say words to make people look in a particular direction. Rather than another. It’s a magic trick.”

“You do it well.”

“Yes, I do.” She gestured toward Helena. “Is she going to make it easier or harder?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you think we can trust her,” C.J. said.

“I don’t know that either. But I believe Miss Wells has no incentive to lie,” Mrs. Frederic said.

A stubbornly defiant part of Helena resolved, at that moment, to tell at least one lie per episode of consciousness. Another part of her shrank from that…  and far too many of her thoughts, when she was allowed to have them, were like this now, a push in one direction, a pull in another. She knew she needed something to fix her gaze upon, something to guide her.

She had had that, before, in Myka, and she had willfully rejected her, betrayed her so completely that she still could not think of her without pain. Rightfully; she deserved every bit of pain that she felt. Every bit, and more.

Helena said, “I have no incentive to do much of anything. But perhaps, as Mr. McGarry said, I can be useful in some way.”

“You have important work still to do,” Mrs. Frederic told her. “The developing state of affairs features many moving parts, and you will interact with several of them.” Her expression relaxed infinitesimally. “And I believe you have finished running away from your truth.”

Helena tried to look everywhere _but_ at Mrs. Frederic’s softened features. She caught C.J.’s eyes again, saw the intelligence, the activity of thought; she knew she was being judged. “I will let you down too,” she wanted to warn her. “No matter what Mrs. Frederic believes.”

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixity fix fix fix. Having said that, the canon STINKS, and having to work in and around it—having to be familiar enough with it to even pretend to work around it—is awful. On the other hand, going back and looking at West Wing has been great (and not just “Ways and Means,” the episode wherein the gift of “Giselle” is received); it is nice to be able to call it “research.”

“China’s accusing us of trying to steal something back from them that they don’t actually have!” Josh shouted. “How is that not a Giselle of catastrophic proportions?”

“It is a Giselle of misunderstanding proportions,” Helena maintained.

“In the first place, you can’t prove a negative.”

“Well then, tell them to prove they have it.”

“We can’t tell them to do anything! Their government’s been twitchy about everything lately. I don’t see the President saying ‘Hey China, prove you have this Warehouse that you don’t have that nobody’s even supposed to know exists!’”

C.J. said, “That’s really more like proving a double negative.”

“Thus, proof positive?” Helena ventured.

Josh slumped back in his chair. “What’s positive about it? How do we talk to China about the thing when we can’t even talk about what the thing is?”

“Sounds like a normal day in international diplomacy to me,” C.J. said with a shrug.

“Fine,” Josh said. “The two of you can take it to Leo, and good luck with _that_ , and then you can take it to the President, and I’ll just… I don’t know, pop some popcorn.”

Helena’s telephone made its noise at her, and she looked down. “It’s Myka,” she said. Such a call was enough of an anomaly to make her pulse speed up—Myka did not call without a reason, and Helena knew that she herself was defying Mrs. Frederic quite brazenly by simply answering when she did call.

Josh groaned, “Your Warehouse _girlfriend_.”

“ _Not_ my girlfriend.”

“C.J. says she’s your girlfriend.”

Helena sighed. “C.J. is mistaken.” She looked at C.J. as sternly as she could. “C.J. is _deliberately_ mistaken.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Tell your girlfriend that she and her buddies should stop instigating international Giselles.” He jumped up and ran out, yelling, “Hey, Leo, wait up!”

C.J. said, “I’ll step out. You stay here, it’s okay.”

Helena nodded gratefully and answered the phone. “Myka? Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Myka said. “Things feel really weird here. Some really bizarre artifacts, and accidents with artifacts… the Warehouse was moving, then it wasn’t… I know this sounds strange, but I feel like I need some kind of outside perspective. Could I come see you? I can get to Boone in about, I don’t know, four or five hours. Or maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle.”

Helena cursed her traitorous heart, leaping at the thought of Myka wanting to see her. “I’m not… there. Anymore. In Boone. I left Boone.”

“Where are you?”

“Ah… I’m—” God, the things Myka’s voice, still, particularly with that edge of slight demand, could do to her… she really was at a loss. “I’m… in Washington.” Better true details than false ones—if she was going to have to lie again, she needed to have a story she could be sure of holding to.

“D.C.?”

“Yes…” Still scrambling…

C.J. stuck her head in the door, said, “Come on, we have to go,” then realized Helena was still on the phone. “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

She said all of it too loudly, though; Myka heard. “Who’s that?”

“Ah… that’s… just someone.”

“What kind of someone?” Myka asked. She sounded suspicious, and Helena sighed. The lies she told this woman… she wondered, sometimes, if Mrs. Frederic had some sort of overarching plan to force her into these dreadful, awkward untruths.

“Someone who.. I mean, she…” How to stop her? “She’s… a friend?”

“Helena,” Myka said, and now her tone was unyielding. “A friend? Based on how you sound, no. Different than a friend. More than a friend. Someone you’re seeing. I think.”

Well, it was an out, at least, and Helena took it, cursing herself all the way. “Yes, that’s why I left Boone. For… someone else.” She raised a palm to C.J. in an “I’m sorry” gesture.

“For a woman? What’s her name?”

C.J. mouthed, “Don’t you dare.”

“Ah…” She felt for a dizzy moment as if “Helena” and “C.J.” were the only women’s names she knew… but then: “Giselle.”

At this, C.J. barked a laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Oh,” Myka said. Helena could not discern the quality of that “oh,” but she could guess at it well enough, and she wanted nothing more than to shout the truth at her through the telephone, across the miles and months and misery of their separation. It _was_ misery, and it was taking its toll, and Helena missed so very much the voice that Myka had in the past used with her, had in the past seemed to _reserve_ for her, even before, even when Helena was mad and plotting, and even after, even when it had seemed that Helena would never be able to atone, would always and only ever be just a shimmering facsimile. But Myka did not speak with that voice anymore. It was a near relative, but only that. And Helena knew it was her own fault, knew she made it worse every time they did speak. Every time Helena did not say, “I must wait until I can tell you everything.” And that not saying became more difficult every time.

Because indeed: Helena was willing to die for the Warehouse. She was willing to renounce Myka for the Warehouse. But she was beginning to question whether she was willing to seem to betray Myka repeatedly, almost in slow motion, without any notion of when it might end, for the Warehouse.

“Myka, please, will you let me call you later?” Helena asked, because C.J. was making “hurry up” gestures.

“I guess,” Myka said. “I’ll… I guess I’ll talk to you sometime, then.” She hung up.

Helena dropped her head, but C.J. said, “Do the lovesick thing later. We don’t have time now.”

As they walked—Helena had no idea where they were going—C.J. continued, “Okay, three things. First, you don’t think on your feet very well, do you? Particularly for a supposed genius. This is like a replay of that Boone thing you told me about.”

“Don’t remind me,” Helena said.

“And second, I really don’t think our relationship is going to last. What with you being in love with someone else.”

“Also true,” Helena agreed moodily. “I thought of saying you were a coworker, but then there would have been questions about what kind of work and where… this at least, I knew, would stop her. As Boone, for all its awfulness, stopped her.” Helena almost had to trot to keep up with C.J. “Wait, that was two things. What’s the third?”

C.J. chuckled. “You’re about to meet the President.”

****

Helena felt herself come to consciousness. She was standing in front of C.J. Cregg. Mrs. Frederic was nowhere in evidence, just as she had not been when… well. Helena _would not_ let herself think about the last time, or last few times, she had been in her partially sensate state.  “Apparently I need your help,” C.J. said. “I’m supposed to show you a picture.”

“All right,” Helena said. She presumed she was in the White House, but this was not the same room as at first.

C.J. held up a photograph, and Helena, had she been a physical being, would have staggered, for looking back at her was… “James MacPherson,” she said.

C.J. turned the photo around and looked at it closely. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s Lord John Marbury.”

“No, it isn’t,” Helena said.

“Yes, it is,” C.J. said. “He’s the British Ambassador, and he’s coming to the White House tonight. For the First Lady’s birthday party.”

“But that can’t be,” Helena said.

“Because…?”

“He’s dead,” said Helena.

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s not.”

“How?”

“Because he’s coming to the White House tonight for the First Lady’s birthday party.”

“But he’s…”

“Not dead.”

“He _is_ dead.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I killed him.”

“You _killed_ Lord John Marbury?”

“No, I killed James MacPherson.”

“Who Lord John Marbury _isn’t_ , so I think everything’s fine.” C.J. shook her head, then said, “Wait.”

“I can do little else,” Helena said.

“I think I remember…” She went to the computer; clicking noises ensued. “Yeah… he has a brother.”

“Convenient,” Helena sighed. “Let me guess… black sheep of the family? Gone rogue in some way?”

“Well, dead, anyway,” C.J. said.

“I told you I killed him.”

“You really are a special snowflake, aren’t you? A special, murderous snowflake…”

“I had reasons.”

“Everybody has reasons.” She paused. “Okay, fine. What were your reasons?”

“He tried to… make me do his bidding. He tried to take what was mine.”

“So naturally you killed him.”

“Rather unnaturally, really.”

C.J. said, “That’s probably some kind of Warehouse thing I won’t understand. Let’s just leave it at, you killed him.”

“Yes.”

“Which for me raises the question, why are we talking about him?”

“Because you showed me his picture.”

“I showed you Lord John Marbury’s picture.”

“At any rate,” Helena said

“So why are we?”

“I have no idea,” Helena said. Then she thought. “He is coming here, you say. Simply for this party, or for an additional purpose?”

“There’s always an additional purpose,” C.J. said. “Leo’s going to have Toby meet with him. About an Irish terrorist who isn’t a terrorist coming to the White House.”

“Well,” Helena said, “perhaps we are talking about him because someone—perhaps Toby, perhaps he—needs to be reminded that he has, or that he once had, a brother.”

“Well, families…” And then, clearly, C.J. started thinking. “Yeah. I should tell Toby that.” She then asked, “Why would she not just pick up the phone and tell me this?”

“Mrs. Frederic, you mean?”

C.J. gave her an “of course” look.

Helena said, “I think you should know by now, Mrs. Frederic has her reasons of which reason knows nothing. Or rather, of which _our_ reason knows nothing.”

At this, C.J. smiled. “Even yours, special snowflake?”

“I’m sure you mean that insultingly,” Helena said, but she was also holding back a laugh. She had certainly not expected to laugh. Perhaps ever again. “Now I have a question,” she said.

“I answer questions all day long. Shoot.”

Helena twitched a little at the use of that word, but she asked, “Why am I speaking with you and not Toby?”

“You might remember how _well_ he responded to your first encounter.”

“I do, but—”

“And then the Mrs. Frederic thing.”

“Which thing?”

“The fact that this is a conversation and not a phone call in which Mrs. Frederic says to me, ‘Miss Cregg, Lord John Marbury had a brother but H.G. killed him.’” C.J. looked closely at Helena. “She obviously wants us to talk to each other.”

“All right,” Helena said. A silence stretched between them, long enough for Helena to begin to feel that she might in fact have the ability to become physically uncomfortable.

“I’ve got one more question for you,” C.J. said.

“I don’t answer questions all day long, so this brings a bit of much-needed variety.”

“What’s your first name? It can’t be ‘Herbert.’”

“I should make you guess,” Helena said, “if we’re to have a conversation.”

“I have to go talk to Toby. What’s your first name?”

“Helena.”

“Do you mind if I call you that? ‘H.G.’ doesn’t quite work for me. For you.”

“All right,” Helena said, though she felt that agreeing was a small betrayal. She had not expected to be called “Helena” by anyone again, not after… well. “What is your first name, then?”

“Claudia.”

And Helena reflected that there were really no coincidences in life, or rather that everything was coincidence, but that at any rate it all doubtless made some grand, mad sense that someday, if she were ever given leave to sit and think again, she would sort into proper alignments of causes and effects. “I can’t call you Claudia,” she said. If she had breath, it would have been a gasp.

C.J. nodded.

****

When Helena next awakened, C.J. was wearing an evening gown. “You look lovely,” Helena said, because it was the case.

“Thanks. It’s tonight. I mean, later tonight. The same day. Is it polite to orient you? I didn’t do that last time.”

She trailed off, seemingly wooly… Ah, Helena thought. She was somewhat drunk.

C.J. started again. “You seem different.”

“Than?”

“Than you were with Mrs. Frederic when we first… ‘met’ doesn’t seem like the right word, but…”

She was observant, Helena had to give her that. “I am different. Some things have happened.”

“What things?”

“I… helped. To remedy a situation, one that I set in motion in the past. Someone died.”

“Who’d you kill this time? They catch you in a bad mood?” She gave a slightly intoxicated giggle.

“It was inadvertent.” Helena wished she could sit. Despite her earlier feelings of incipient discomfort, she knew that she was not—could apparently not be—tired, per se, but C.J. had sat down, and Helena would have liked to feel not so like a student being examined. Or a suspect being interrogated.

“That’s better, right?” C.J. asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“Because it… I don’t know.”

“For a genius, you don’t know much at all, do you?” She stopped, then said, “Do you, Helena?”

“No,” Helena said, wincing at the sound of her name from C.J.’s lips. “And when I do, I come to know it far too late.”

“Or early, if Mrs. Frederic’s telling the truth… time machines? Ray guns? Rockets?”

Helena was silent.

“What did you know too late?’ C.J. leaned forward, with intensity. She waited. She said again, “What did you know too late? If I know things too late, I can’t do my job. If you know things too late, you try to end the world. What did you know too late?”

“That I am not redeemable.”

“That’s not something you know too late. That’s something you learn after something happens. And maybe it’s true, but it’s not what you knew too late. What did you know too late?”

Mrs. Frederic sent her to talk to C.J. And this was what they were talking about. Helena squared her shoulders and said, “That I loved someone.”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 2 tumblr tags: I think the show should not have instigated an international Giselle, so I guess I am with Josh in all this


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really an impossible pile of difficult to fix. I continue to be beyond ticked that this is necessary, but if it gets us some H.G./C.J. stuff, then okay. (Is there a more canonical West Wing utterance than “Okay”?)

C.J. said, “According to Leo, it’s time. He’s been wanting to meet you anyway, since you wrapped up that Boone business.”

“But we really should talk to Mrs. Frederic first. I don’t have any answers for him. Not yet.”

“Oh, grasshopper. You’d be surprised how that office inspires people to come up with answers… then again, you probably wouldn’t be surprised, given that the only person who can really surprise you is your girlfriend.”

“She is not my girlfriend,” Helena said.

“No, that’s right, I forgot: _I’m_ your girlfriend.”

Josh stuck his head out of the door to the Oval Office. “Wow, you guys are dating now? You really get around, H.G.—girlfriends all over the country.”

Helena said, “I have never liked the word ‘girlfriend.’”

“You don’t like ‘catastrophe,’ you don’t like ‘girlfriend’… we’re gonna have the whole dictionary off-limits pretty soon.”

“Josh!” Leo called from inside the room. “If you could knock it off, there is an elected official here who isn’t amused by your comedy routine!”

C.J. preceded Helena in, giving her a brief moment to gather herself. Helena had not expected to have any particular response to this office, to its holder—she had seen too much, known too many people, done too many of the things that were possible to do. But in fact, she had never met a United States President before. She had never met a person with so much actual, non-artifact-related power. She tried to school her features, but she feared she did indeed look as wide-eyed as she felt.

President Bartlet walked toward her as she entered the room. “H.G. Wells,” he said. “This is very exciting. I have to tell you, anyone whose work can make the American public believe they’re being invaded by Martians is someone I feel like I ought to keep a close eye on.”

Helena was unsure as to whether this was a joke. So she said, “You give me far too much credit. From what I understand, their erroneous belief was due more to what the other Welles contributed to the work.”

“So modest!” he exclaimed. He held out a hand. “I’m Jed Bartlet. Seriously, I can’t wrap my brain around this, so I guess I’m not even going to count you among the six impossible things I had to believe before breakfast today.”

“Sir,” Josh said, “it’s after lunch.”

“Josh,” the President said, “I really wish you had read more books as a child. And I also wish you’d quit muttering about gazelles. It’s making me think you must have hit your head on something.”

“Not gazelles,” Josh said. “Giselles.”

“Well, that clarification certainly relieves my mind,” said the President. “Here’s the thing, Agent Wells—or would you mind if I called you ‘H.G.’? I’d sort of like to keep reminding myself of exactly who it is I’m talking to.”

“As you prefer,” Helena said. He was so… charismatic. She was really quite captivated.

“Yeah, so here’s the thing: how do I get China to back off this Warehouse business? Somewhere in all those artifacts, is there some magic wand you can wave and make them forget about it?”

Helena would have liked to see Mrs. Frederic appear at that moment… “Unfortunately,” she said, “the use of artifacts for personal gain is generally frowned upon.”

“Yeah, I figured it’d be something like that. I don’t suppose we could talk Mrs. Frederic into making an exception here?”

This made Helena laugh. “Mrs. Frederic can rarely be talked into anything.”

“Yeah, I figured that too. Otherwise Leo wouldn’t be thrown into such a tizzy every time she shows up.”

“I am not thrown into a tizzy,” Leo said. “She just tends to upset the carefully constructed balance of my day.”

“If that’s the story you need to tell yourself,” the President said. “Anyway, listen, H.G., I’ve got this China thing going on, and I really need something to try to get them to back off. Not that they will; it’s been just all kinds of difficult lately.”

That sparked a thought for Helena. Just a glimmer… “Josh,” she said. “You used that same word, that the Chinese government has ‘lately’ been twitchy about everything. In what sense did you mean ‘lately’?”

Josh gave a small shrug. “They’re kinda twitchy all the time, really, but I’d say it’s gotten worse in the past couple of months? Few months? Or so?”

“That sounds about right,” Leo said.

Helena asked, “And was there some incident to precipitate this change in attitude?”

Leo said, “Not that I know of. In fact, a few months ago, the President had what he thought was a very productive conversation, didn’t you, sir?”

“That’s right,” President Bartlet said. “Really believed there was some progress there.”

Helena wished she had someone, anyone, from the Warehouse with her, just so she could be more sure of the line of inquiry she was about to pursue. “Did you perhaps send something to the Chinese government? A gift of some sort?”

The President said, “What, you mean something they misconstrued? I wouldn’t put that past us. Charlie!” A young man appeared instantly. “Charlie, find out when we last sent anything to China, will you?”

“Wait, Charlie,” C.J. said. “That doesn’t sound quite right to me. Yes, they’re twitchy, but Josh, didn’t you say it’s like the President keeps saying exactly the wrong thing?”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Why would you repeat that?” and then, to the President, “It wasn’t like that at all. You know C.J. and putting spins on things. With… words.”

“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” the President said. “But I think we’ll deal with your poor grasp of the intricacies of diplomacy later.”

C.J. was still thinking. “Helena, what would do something like that? What would make him say the wrong thing?”

Helena shrugged helplessly. “Anything could. Almost _anything_. Possibly… something that causes a general loss of diplomatic skills?”

“But it’s just China,” C.J. said. “Just China. We have our problems with other countries, but mostly we’re fine. Why would it be just China?”

Helena said, “All right, something specific to China. But he could have encountered it anywhere. Months ago… with what object specific to China would he have come in contact?”

Charlie said, “Well…” He stopped.

“What is it?” the President asked.

“A China-related object? That you encountered a few months ago? Maybe even one that you’re been around all the time since then?”

Everyone looked expectantly at him.

“How about that?” Charlie asked, and pointed across the room at…

“Is that a ping-pong bat?” Helena asked. How, she wondered, would a ping-pong bat affect diplomatic relations between China and the United States?

The President said, “It’s not _a_ ping-pong bat… or paddle, I mean. It’s _the_ ping-pong paddle. Glenn Cowan’s ping-pong paddle. From 1971. Ping-pong diplomacy?”

Helena wanted to nod, to play along, but she was completely lost… probably time to start admitting that, when it was the case. So she said, “I’m very sorry, but I don’t understand.”

Leo said, “You just had to give him the opportunity to deliver a history lecture. You just had to do that.”

C.J. said, “She doesn’t think on her feet very well.”

President Bartlet waved his hand. “Honestly, I’d rather _she_ give _me_ a history lecture. I’ll keep it short: In 1971, the U.S. table tennis team visited China; it helped prepare the ground for Nixon’s trip in 1972. Glenn Cowan was really the instigator. And I was feeling sentimental about diplomatic thaws with China—not to mention, pretty good about myself—so I had it brought up here from the Smithsonian.”

Helena said, “The team’s sojourn helped to end a period of poor relations?”

“Extremely poor,” the President said.

Helena thought for a moment. “Here is what I believe has happened,” she said. “The paddle has somehow absorbed the energy of the nonproductive period. In being part of the solution, let us say, it took onto itself part of the problem. Odd that its effect would be specific to one country, but I suppose China is quite… distinctive.”

“So how do we fix it?” Josh asked.

“Under normal circumstances, I would simply neutralize it. But unfortunately I have no way of doing so at present; for now, I would recommend removing it, without touching it, and waiting. I will attempt to get an agent here to retrieve it at once. I suspect that when it is neutralized, your contact with the Chinese government will be far more productive—and we may hope, sufficiently so as to dissuade them from taking action in the Warehouse matter.”

The President said, “Well, I think a magic wand would’ve been more entertaining, but okay.” He came to Helena, took her hand again. “I don’t have time right now, but will you come back and give me that history lecture? Or we can talk about anything at all, really. How you see the world. Anything at all.”

Helena smiled. “I believe that, as these fine people upon whom you rely are wont to reiterate, I too serve at the pleasure of the President. So I would be delighted to speak with you about, as you say, anything at all.”

“That’s excellent. Right now, let’s get this paddle out of here. And let me know when it’s safe to make like Nixon.”

****  
Helena was becoming almost accustomed to regaining consciousness in front of C.J. “Why am I here?” she asked.

“I asked for the orb,” C.J. says.

“And Mrs. Frederic agreed?”

“She said, and I quote, ‘That way lies madness.’”

“But she gave in?”

“I reminded her that I work at the _White House_. Madness? Please. We trump some crazy hologram every day of the week, except maybe the Yellowstone day, and even then I’m sure we were managing to _actually_ destroy some country’s banking system instead of just threatening to and then having our girlfriend stop us.”

Helena asked, with suspicion, “Are you drunk again?”

“Not yet,” C.J. said. “But I hope to be soon.”

“We are not in an office,” Helena notices.

“No. This is my apartment. I’ve had a very long few days.”

“Why am I here?” Helena asked again.  
  
“I want to talk to you.”

“All right.”

“No, I want to _talk_ to you.”

“I said, all right.”

C.J. sighed. “Something happened.”

“All right.”

“All wrong.”

“Tell me,” Helena says.

“He was Secret Service, and he was protecting me. And then that ended, and he died. He got shot in a stupid, pointless robbery. He shouldn’t even have been there. It just _happened_. It was pointless, and I don’t understand it.”

Helena’s last period of awareness had been the aftermath of explaining Christina, and bronzing, and unbronzing, and _Myka_ , to C.J. “I don’t know what to tell you. You want me to tell you something, but I don’t know what it is.”

“You lost your daughter.”

“And it drove me mad.”

“No. You drove _yourself_ mad. Trying to change it. I know I can’t change it.”

“Do you? Then why am I here?”

“Because I want to talk to you.”

“We are talking.”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about.” And C.J. bowed her head.

“Did you love him?” Helena asked.

“Not quite. So close.”

Helena said, “And that is what you mourn.”

“It’s less than what you mourned. Both times.”

“Both times?”

“Myka. She’s dead. To you.”

Helena felt that as an almost physical blow. “Don’t say it like that. Don’t call me to you just to make me suffer with you. I have suffered sufficiently, thank you.”

“And yet. She _is_ still alive,” C.J. said.

Helena laughed. Emptily. “Thank you for the reminder. That does me a great deal of good.”

“Helena, god damn you. She is alive. Are you alive?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you want to be?”

“I would have said no. Before.”

“But you miss her now. You love punishing yourself, but you miss her now.”

“I have always missed her. I will always miss her. No matter my feelings about punishing myself.”

C.J. said, “But she’s alive, Helena. Simon Donovan died. He can’t come back. Don’t give up. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

“His surname was Donovan?”

“Yes.”

And Helena felt the loss of this potential Claudia Donovan almost as much as she would have the actual one. And she asked, “How can I have hope, C.J.? Hope requires some ground, something in which to believe.”

“All I know is, you aren’t dead. She isn’t dead.” Helena, now, in response, bowed her own head. “Tell me what to do,” C.J. went on. “Tell me how to take this and feel it. How do I make it make sense?”

“I can’t. I tried to make sense of something, and I came very close to destroying the only thing that matters to me now.”

“But you didn’t. It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work?”

“I couldn’t do it. Someone else would have had to do it. I’m so sorry that someone did that to you.”

“The worst part is, there’s nothing I can do. He’s dead.”

“My daughter is dead.”

“Myka’s alive.”

“But am I?”

“I don’t know.” Helena saw C.J.’s expression change in an instant: now they were talking policy. “I can try to find out.”

“Can you really?” Helena said.

“Well, try doesn’t mean succeed.”

“Why am I here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“To see if I should help you.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t help myself.”

When Helena had confessed herself to C.J., before, C.J. had coughed out a laugh. “I’d already sort of gathered that,” she’d said. “Remember, when you were first here, and you said that she stopped you? Pretending like it didn’t matter who it was? You’ve got a pretty bad poker face.”

“Listen,” C.J. said now, “I want to help you.”

“But we don’t even know if I exist. Except like this.”  
  
“Except like this,” C.J. agreed. She looked behind her. “I think we’re out of time. But I’ll try, Helena. I’ll try to get you back. Don’t give up.”

And all Helena could do, in the second of her consciousness that remained, was say an abbreviated hallelujah that Myka Bering was, as far as she knew, still in the world.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 3 tumblr tags: Posse Comitatus, this one gets me every time, not just because of Mark Harmon, but because how it is about how you have to be willing to sacrifice your very soul for the greater good, and also, when I decided to kick your ass


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, it may not be immediately apparent that it’s all getting fixed, but believe me, there is overtime work being put in to get these Giselles out of the woods. (Again I say: the WH13 text that one has been given to work with? Absolutely incoherent.)

“I obviously need a Warehouse agent,” Helena said.

C.J. snickered, and Helena gave her a look intended to be withering; C.J. laughed harder. “You should play these things in your head before you say them,” she said.

“Thank you. I’ll take that under advisement. I obviously need a Warehouse agent _to deal with a curiosity_ , and in the Boone case I was given leave to call Myka. _And_ just a short while ago, I told Myka I would call her back. So it makes sense for me to simply call Myka, does it not?”

“You don’t need my permission. It’s Mrs. Frederic who told you to stay away from your pals, not me.”

Helena brooded over the question for some time—as long as she dared.

Then, as had been, she suspected, inevitable, she called Myka.

And was surprised.

“Everything’s fine now,” Myka said. “I know I must have sounded weird before, but I feel a lot better. Mrs. Frederic had us do this wonderful thing where we got to see our defining moments at the Warehouse.”

“Really. That sounds… interesting.”

Myka smiled. Helena could hear that smile in Myka’s voice as she said, “Well, yours was there too, when you caught Jack the Ripper. It looked amazing. And how you were going on about the British Empire… it was sweet, and kind of moving, in a historical way.”

Jack the Ripper? Going on about the British Empire? Defining moment? “What could you possibly be talking about? I didn’t—”

“And then when you were working with Steve and Claudia, when they were doing that Fantastic Voyage thing on Artie’s heart, that was Steve’s moment. Also really moving.”

Helena said, “But Myka, Steve and I, we haven’t ever worked—”

Myka interrupted, “And then of course my moment, when I realized I was in love with Pete.”

At this, Helena laughed. “I’m sorry, our connection must be garbled. I thought I heard you say you realized you were in love with Pete.”

“But I _am_ in love with Pete! It seemed kind of strange at first, but now it’s really great.”

Helena was barely able to speak. She forced out, “Myka, are you speaking in code?”

Myka, sounding genuinely puzzled, said, “No. Why would I do that? I mean, isn’t it obvious? I’ve been in love with him the whole time. And, you know, kissing him really confirmed it for me. I just know we’re going to be so happy together. I hope you and Giselle can be that happy, I really do. I can’t wait to meet her. Maybe you two could—”

At this, Helena disconnected the call. She stood stock-still, in a hallway in the White House, and stared at her telephone.

Naturally, at that point C.J. whirlwinded down the hall, accompanied by Will Bailey. Usually, Helena found herself struck by his way with words, but at that moment, he might have been wearing a muzzle. It would have made no difference.

“Hi, Agent Wells,” he said.

“Yes?” was all Helena could muster.

“Will, go on ahead,” C.J. said. “Tell Toby I’ll be there in a minute.”

Will looked at both of them. “Okay,” he said. “Bye, Agent Wells. Good talking to you. Or, I guess it might have been. You know. If I had.”

“Yes,” Helena said again.

“Helena,” C.J. said. “You look like someone just punched you.”

“I feel as if someone just punched me.”

“What happened?”

“I… don’t know. Another Giselle?”

“Oh god,” C.J. groaned. “The paddle isn’t an artifact after all? There’s something else?”

Helena shook her head. Shook herself. “No, I’m still fairly certain that the paddle is an artifact.”

“Then what’s the Giselle about?”

If it wasn’t a code… if it was somehow real… but how… “It would make sense for Myka to move on. In my absence. Since she of course did not know that said absence was in fact forced, and not voluntary on my part. And she of course thought that I myself had moved on. Had taken up with others. That would make sense. Would it not?”

“Okay,” C.J. said. “I get the feeling we’re going to have to talk you down from this Giselle, so: yes, that would make sense. Because, like you say, she didn’t know you weren’t gone because you wanted to be. And _that_ because, even though the stories you tell to cover your ass are quite frankly _ridiculous_ , she’s apparently willing to twist herself into a pretzel to believe every word you say.”

“Do I owe her the same courtesy, then? To believe every word she says?”

“That depends. What words did she say?”

Helena sighed. “She said something so unbelievable that I genuinely thought for a moment that she intended it as a signal. A coded signal that something was wrong.”

“Okay. If you feel that strongly about it… maybe she did intend it that way. What did she say?”

Helena went on, “Because it simply cannot be true. It simply cannot. If she cannot love _me_ , then… I will accept that somehow, but this?”

“Accept what? Goddammit, Helena, what did she say?”

Helena could barely bring herself to say the words: “She is in love with Pete. She has been in love with him the whole time.” She had to back up to the wall, had to lean against it.

And C.J. sighed. “I’m sure that would be incredibly meaningful to me if I knew who Pete was.”

“Her partner,” Helena said. “Her partner, who is a fine man, but… and then, she said _the whole time_.”

“I get it now,” C.J. said. “That’s the problem, right? The idea that it was never you at all. But Helena—”

“Because I genuinely thought that we… but then again, certainly I made it all very difficult.”

“That’s a nice understatement,” C.J. mused. “Josh might be right about how you get paid.” When Helena didn’t respond, she said, “Not even a chuckle? Not even a look up? Fine, then. What about the paddle?”

“What about it?”

“You didn’t even bring up the fact that we need actual Warehouse assistance?”

“I was too taken aback! This… which was preceded by some truly incomprehensible story about everyone being shown their defining moment at the Warehouse, complete with her recounting of events that never even happened!”

Helena was taken aback again when C.J. hit her on the head with her pad of paper.

“What?!”

“You really need to snap out of it,” C.J. said. “Because Helena? Did you hear what you just said?”

“What?”

“Please bear in mind that I say this with affection, okay? Helena, for a genius, you’re not very smart.”

“What?”

“Events that never even happened. Does that ring a bell as in, I don’t know, something you just said?”

“Oh.”

“Look, I don’t know Myka. I’ve seen that picture you carry around all the time, obviously, but I don’t know her. I don’t know her partner Pete, and I don’t know how plausible or implausible that is. What I do know is, you carry that picture around all the time. I know you were willing to die and lie and I’m sure lots of other rhyming words, all to keep her safe. So if you think something’s wrong? I think you should trust your gut on that.”

Helena ran her hand through her hair. She wanted nothing more to believe that C.J. was reading the situation correctly. If her gut was right about Myka, however, there was another, possibly far greater problem to be reckoned with—and she was almost afraid to articulate it. “If something is truly wrong…” She touched her hair again. “C.J., if something is truly wrong, then Mrs. Frederic is involved.”

****

“And Air Force One will leave for the debate in San Diego in two hours,” C.J. said to the members of the press. She looked down at the schedule, just to make sure she’d identified all the relevant information…

…and then she looked up, because suddenly there was no point to any of it; reelection was a fading dream; and everything they had worked so hard to achieve was going to be dismantled any day, any _minute_.

All the reporters were staring at her. She stared back—and she saw despair equal to hers in each and every pair of eyes.

How long they remained locked in that terrible contemplation, C.J. could not have said.

At some point, movement at her side caught her attention. It was Toby. “Come out here,” he whispered loudly.

“That’s all for now,” she said, automatically, toward the room. Then to Toby, as they left, “Something happened, what happened, is it the President?”

Toby led her to the nearest television screen. “Here,” he said.

“—of a massive seismic event in South Dakota; we are trying to find out what exactly precipitated it and what has been affected—” she heard the announcer say.

And Toby said, very quietly, into her ear, “The Warehouse is gone.”

“Gone? As in disappeared?”

“No.” He looked more bleak than she had ever imagined possible. “Like… in an explosion.”

“The Warehouse exploded?” C.J. said. Those words made absolutely no sense.

“As far as we can tell.”

“But… what does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. Leo doesn’t know.”

And C.J. had several thoughts, in rapid succession: what about Mrs. Frederic? what about the orb that held the hologram of Helena? and what about Myka Bering, whom C.J. did not even know, but who was important all the same, for saving the world, and for in the process saving Helena?

Then she looked at the television again, and she realized any thoughts she might have of trying to find out the fate of individuals were going to have to wait.

“—chaos is breaking out—”

“—reports of erratic behavior—”

“—need for martial law already in some areas—”

****

Amid the general joy at the bed and breakfast, Mrs. Frederic pulled Helena aside. “You will need to remove yourself immediately from this situation.”

“Remove myself? We just… the situation just became tolerable! The situation… I am here! I am myself! How can I, why would I _remove_ myself?”

Mrs. Frederic said, “You and Agent Bering have a tendency to become… entangled.”

Helena did not answer. Why would she ever have thought that she and Myka would even be allowed to _speak_ to each other, much less all the extensive _more_ she had been foolish enough to let herself contemplate for these brief… hours? Minutes? She wasn’t even sure it had been an hour.

“The problem,” Mrs. Frederic continued, “is that you need to be apart from the situation. If you are going to be able to contribute, later.”

“What could you possibly mean?”

“You have to leave. Right now.”

“Right _now_?” And Helena looked at Myka, happy with her friends, relieved at the crisis averted, every now and then glancing at Helena like… as if… as if she might really…

“Right now,” Mrs. Frederic said. “You are not fully aware of what is at stake.”

“And if I said I don’t care what’s at stake?”

Mrs. Frederic frowned. “This is about the future, Miss Wells. The present is all very well, and we could live in it if we did not care for the future. But I believe you do care for it.”

Helena tried not to react.

“Something has happened,” Mrs. Frederic said. “I can feel it. And I see that you can as well.”

“He knows too much,” Helena allowed. “Artie does.”

“Which is why I must ask you to defer your desires until a later time. It will not be precisely the consolation you seek, but if you leave now, you will be able to meet someone of importance to you. In San Diego.”

****

There had been a Presidential debate. This, Helena had been informed of by Mrs. Frederic. She was now in the backstage area of the aftermath of said debate. She did not know where to go or what to do, so she stood still. She stood still, in her body. She touched a wall. She drank a sip of water from a glass provided by a young man who had no idea who she was.

Until she heard a blessedly familiar voice say, “Helena?” and “What are you doing here?” and “Where is Mrs. Frederic?”

And Helena said, “C.J.”

And C.J. said, “You’re wearing different clothes.”

“Because I’m wearing clothes,” Helena said.

“Don’t you usually? I mean, you’re not naked, right?”

Helena laughed. “No. Though heaven knows why not. But look.” She pulled at her clothing. Then she reached out a hand and, for the first time, touched C.J. Pulled at her sleeve, touched her wrist. “Your clothes, too,” she said.

“Wait, what?” And C.J., too, reached out. Touched Helena’s sleeve. “You’re here. I told you I’d try, but I couldn’t find out how to make it happen. How did this happen?”

“It’s a very long story.”

“You know what?” C.J. said. “I don’t care what the story is. This has been an amazing night, for all the reasons, and I’m going to put my arms around you now, for each and every one of those reasons. Is that okay?”

Helena looked up, into her eyes. She wished she could be looking up into Myka’s eyes instead. “That is more than okay,” she said. And she embraced her friend… her _friend_ … for the first time.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 4 tumblr tags: I really do think they could be great friends, plus Game On is an awesome episode, because ties!, who among us does not love a tie?, and if I could have put HG or CJ in one I would have, but alas that does not quite work here, oh well, some future thingy perhaps


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Renovation work continues… yeah, the tone of this whole thing is weird. Anyway, this story should probably be subtitled "Cognitive Dissonance," for all kinds of reasons.

Helena knew she needed to determine two things: one, the extent of the problem; and two, the cause of the problem. And, of course, the all-important third thing: what the problem, in fact, was.

She called Myka again. “I’m so terribly sorry we were disconnected.”

“That’s okay,” Myka told her. “It gave me some time to think about Pete.”

Helena felt that she might truly become ill if she kept hearing this tone in Myka’s voice, this strange tone that both was and was not Myka… she was simply going to have to put these feelings aside in order to obtain the information she sought, though thinking of Myka in such strictly utilitarian terms seemed like yet another betrayal. For a while, she had kept a strange tally in her head, a tally accompanied by another column, one with potentially counterbalancing actions: manipulation to achieve reinstatement; discussion at bookstore. Deception at Warehouse 2; persuasion in Pittsburgh. Threats made at Yellowstone; sacrifice for Warehouse. Lies told in Boone… well, she had not even begun to compensate for the lies she told in Boone.

Perhaps she could do so now, by covering completely her reaction to being blindsided by Myka’s newfound love for Pete. She cleared her throat. “That’s… wonderful. But we were speaking of defining moments, were we not? How, exactly, did you see these moments?”

And at Myka’s answer, Helena felt a chill. She knew that artifact. Yes, the Round Table. Yes, memories. But memories that twisted the truth of the past into lies. Lies that corrupted, lies that led good people, champions, knights, and even kings astray. The chivalric code, with its lofty ideals regarding war, religion, love… how those seated at the table wished to embody those ideals. How the darkness of the table thwarted them.

Because every seat at the table was in its own way a Siege Perilous. Every seat. King Arthur had got it wrong, of course. (King Arthur had got a lot of things wrong.) Certainly one seat may have at one time been more immediately fatal than the others… but each was fatal in its own way, giving visions of perverted Grails, misrepresenting the paths to their achievement.

The table should have been in the deepest reaches of the Dark Vault. For Mrs. Frederic to have brought it out, for her to have _used_ it…

“Myka,” Helena said, “did Mrs. Frederic explain her reasons for showing you these moments?”

“Don’t you remember? It’s a ritual you do when the Warehouse is getting ready to move. Artie knew about it. That’s why you’re in there too, obviously.”

Obviously? But Helena had been bronzed well before the Warehouse moved… “But I thought…” No—she had been about to speak of the confusion regarding the Warehouse’s move, or lack thereof, to China, but then she remembered: Myka did not know that she, Helena, knew any of those details. And Helena knew them only because Mrs. Frederic had conveyed them… but if Mrs. Frederic were in fact carrying out some nefarious plan, perhaps the China situation had never happened at all? But no, the Chinese clearly had had some expectation, or the White House would not be aware of it…

Her head was swimming.

“Pete!” she heard from her phone, “I told you, not at work!” But then Myka laughed.

Helena hung up again.

****

Helena stayed away from Myka, as instructed. In the main, she stayed away from the Warehouse as well, running errands, performing small tasks. For example, she researched a dagger.

She conveyed the information regarding the dagger to Artie in person, hoping against hope that Myka would simply be present somewhere near, or would simply walk in, giving Helena complete deniability in the matter: “How could I possibly have known?” she had planned to say to Mrs. Frederic. “And what could I have done? She was _right there_.”

But she was not _right there_.

Not when Helena accused Artie of having manipulated time in some way. Not when Artie told Helena and Mrs. Frederic that they both had died, that the Warehouse had exploded, hence his manipulation of time with Magellan’s astrolabe. Not when Mrs. Frederic gave Helena the fated astrolabe and told her to disappear with it.

And Helena wanted to ask, to beg, for an opportunity to say goodbye, to say any words at all.

Instead, she nodded. And disappeared.

****

She moved frequently. She drove rented cars and stayed in rented rooms. She discovered the near-narcotic companionship of television.

She watched the coverage of President Bartlet’s reelection—with secret pride, and also with a wish that she could call C.J. and congratulate her on the victory.

She watched movies made from the novels that bore her name—with secret pride there as well, but there also with a strange nostalgia for the times that had inspired the ideas. In particular, she saw a version of _The Invisible Man_ , from 1933; she had to admit that the fellow playing the central role did seem to understand the madness at its heart… and she was beginning to feel a touch of that madness again. This time it was no metaphor for her gender, of course, but as for the need to practice misdirection in some Warehouse-related capacity—well, apparently, _plus ça change_ on that front.

Some weeks later, she watched reports of a plague overtaking the world. When she herself began to feel ill, within hours of the first reports, she knew that this was no natural event. She watched C.J. hold a press conference. She watched C.J.’s face very carefully, listened very carefully to her tone of voice. C.J. knew. And if C.J. knew, that had to mean that Mrs. Frederic knew, which in turn meant that the Warehouse personnel would be working to find a cure. Helena wished she could be helping them, instead of holed up in a small room in… wherever she was. Somewhere on the eastern side of the country. Someplace green—wooded, warm, and humid. She had thought, just that morning, about how terribly, terribly warm it was. How she should go somewhere else.

Now all she felt was cold. She went to sleep—or perhaps passed out—shaking with chills. When she awoke, however, to the ringing of her telephone, the fever had broken.

Helena was very surprised to find that the call was from the White House.

“Are you all right?” C.J. asked without preamble.

“I believe so,” Helena said.

“Okay. That’s good. Now you can explain why I haven’t heard from you in weeks, why you _disappeared_ after San Diego. I thought they might have turned you back into a hologram.”

“I did disappear. I am off the grid,” Helena explained.

“I just called you on your phone,” C.J. said. “That’s pretty much the exact opposite of being off the grid.”

“Very few people know that I _have_ a telephone,” Helena said.

“It’s still the _grid_. And you are still _on it_.”

“Fair point.” Helena conceded. “But I _am_ in hiding. I’m holding onto… an object. That might be misused.”

“I actually know that. And do you know how I know that?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Frederic told me to tell you, and I quote: ‘It is time to return it to the Brotherhood.’”

“Why is she not telling me this herself?”

“How many times are we going to have this exact same conversation, Helena? She’s not telling you this herself because we’re just pawns on her giant chessboard, and she’s _god_ , okay? In other words, I don’t know why.”

“I don’t think she’s god.”

“I don’t think we have any basis on which to declare that to be absolutely true.”

“Fair point again,” Helena said.

“I think that means I win.”

“I think that means I have to go to Rome.” But her mind was racing—if she was being directed to return the astrolabe, that had to mean that the danger had passed. Perhaps the plague had been the danger Mrs. Frederic had sensed; perhaps now, at last, once she had completed this task, she could be allowed to return to the Warehouse, could finally… she could barely even ideate it.

“Well, have fun. But maybe think about D.C. as a destination at some point, once you’re back on the grid you’re not actually off of? Because I would like to see your _face_. And maybe hit you in the head with something, now that I can do that.”

“I remain extremely unclear regarding why Mrs. Frederic wants me to talk to you.” But Helena had to admit, at least to herself, that the idea of C.J. hitting her in the head with something did sound, oddly and actually, quite fine.

“Yeah, me too. Be careful, okay? Don’t unleash any plagues, like your pals did.”

“C.J., when you spoke to Mrs. Frederic… did she say anything else? About the plague? Or—its effects?”

“If you’re asking me if she said anything about your girlfriend? No, she didn’t. But you have to think that she would have mentioned. If anything had happened to her.”

But Helena disagreed: she did not have to think that at all. Yet she tried to console herself with the notion that soon she might be able to find out for herself.

****

Brother Adrian was happy to receive the astrolabe from Helena, happy to hide it away from the world once again. He remained extremely unhappy, however, that it had been used. “If I were you, Miss Wells, I would caution Mrs. Frederic and Mr. Jinks and all those involved in the situation to maintain a certain vigilance,” he said. “Evil takes many forms. Robespierre may have been the one who used the astrolabe, but the Reign of Terror was not carried out by one man acting alone. Evil is insidious. Insidious and long-lived.”

At that, Helena laughed. “I know,” she said.

“And history tends to repeat itself.”

“I know that as well.”

****

“Brother Adrian warned me,” Helena said. “About evil.”

“About what evil?” C.J. asked.

“That’s the problem. Just… evil. And there’s certainly nothing _good_ about Mrs. Frederic using artifacts from the Dark Vault to make people do things they would never do… or would most likely never do…” She raised her hands. “But what can I possibly do about it? What can I possibly? And perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps it isn’t evil at all; perhaps there is some overall purpose, perhaps it is to do with the Warehouse moving, or not moving… maybe it is important for Myka to… yet how can I find out? Clearly, everyone there is being affected by whatever is happening, and I don’t have the resources of the Warehouse here. I can’t fix this. I don’t see how to fix this.”

For once, C.J. just looked at her.

“I can’t see how to fix it. Claudia used a dagger to cast evil out of Artie himself, but how can I get to the dagger? And even if I did, how can I use it on each and every one of them? It’s too much, and I’m tired. I’m so tired. This has gone on so long… I just want it to end.”

“You’re decompensating,” C.J. told her.

“I want to walk away.”

“You absolutely do not.”

“Yes, I do. They can have it, evil or not. I’ll go… find an actual Giselle, and—”

“And what?” C.J. said. “Live the rest of your life as Emily Lake?”

“Would that be so bad?”

C.J. said, “I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is what I see.”

“What do you see?”

“I see that you really are tired, which a power nap might help. But I also see that this Myka thing is making you almost literally lose your mind. So let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s say you do go and find yourself a Giselle, and run away to Wisconsin or Wyoming or Woonsocket. And then let’s say someone else comes along and solves this evil thing—just to make it interesting, let’s say it’s years from now that that happens. Setting all potential Warehouse-y evil problems aside, let’s say Myka wakes up from her evil-induced domesticity and realizes that she’s spent _years_ doing something you seem pretty sure she would never have wanted to do. How would that be?”

Helena didn’t answer.

C.J. went on, “But let’s make it even worse. Let’s say she finds out that you knew everything was wrong, you knew it _because of_ her whole evil domesticity thing, and you didn’t even try to fix it. You just ran off with some girl named Giselle.”

Helena looked at the floor. At the ceiling. At the goldfish. Not at C.J., and certainly not at her own heart.

“Obviously the worst part of the story is in fact that your girlfriend’s name is still _Giselle_. But I doubt Myka will see it that way.”

“I really don’t like you,” Helena said. “At all.”

“If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I’d have… well, actually, people tend to like me. I might have enough to buy a cup of coffee. Not at Starbucks, mind you.”

“You sound like the other Claudia.”

“And what would she think? In response to the scenario outlined above?”

Helena shook her head. “Very bad thoughts.”

“Which leads me to my final point.”

“At last.”

“What would Mrs. Frederic think?”

Helena frowned. “We both know there is no predicting _that_.”

“Who did she send away? Because she was afraid that something might be wrong?”

“My dislike for you is hereby reiterated.”

C.J. said, “I have a feeling I’ll be able to afford that frappuccino if we keep talking. But you know what? I’ve changed my mind. You don’t need a power nap. You need a real pep talk. And strangely enough, I know just the person for that.”

Helena was quite surprised to find herself, moments later, ushered into the Oval Office. She was even more surprised when C.J. said, “Just tell him what the problem is,” and departed.

The “pep talk” turned out not to be precisely that, however, for after Helena had explained the situation as succinctly as she could, President Bartlet sighed and said, “I don’t know what to tell you, H.G. I really don’t. I sit in this chair, and they tell me I have power, and it’s true, I do have power, but it never works exactly the way I want it to. Not on the big things. Sure, I can pick up the phone and make some guy in Poughkeepsie do jumping jacks, but what good is that, once you start talking about things that matter? Look, we’re all trying to leave things better than we found them, but it’s rarely as simple as casting out evil. You of all people know what we have inside us. All of us. Can you cast it out? Did you?”

Helena said, honestly, “No. But I think I have learned to manage it.”

“But not without help, right?”

“Not without help from a great many people. Your C.J. included.”

The President laughed. “You don’t have to sell C.J. to me, but okay. My guess is, it’s time for you to return the favor.”

“How?”

“You’re good with _things_ , right? Time machines, rockets.”

“Machines of all sorts.”

“But that’s exactly what people aren’t. Might be easier if they were, but they’re not. That’s a pretty big evil in itself, isn’t it… thinking it’s easy. Thinking we can just cast out evil in one stroke.” He laughed again. “Send flowers to your wife and have her magically forgive you for whatever stupid thing you did. Doesn’t work that way.”

He sighed again, and they sat quietly together for a moment.

Then he looked closely at her. “So, wait, the last time somebody used this thing was Robespierre? And that started the Reign of Terror?” Helena nodded. “Okay. What ended the Reign of Terror?”

“Robespierre’s death? Execution, rather? He was guillotined.”

This was not enough for President Bartlet. “Right, but what led to that?”

“I… don’t remember.”

He frowned, but indulgently. “I’ll let that slide for now, but I’m going to give you a reading list later on. It was the Thermidorian Reaction. They rose up against Robespierre and his buddies. That’s what you need, H.G. You need to start some kind of a Thermidorian Reaction.”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 5 tumblr tags: talking about the Round Table without giving some thought to the Siege Perilous?, is bonkers, so here, have lots of Sieges Perilous, and also a Thermidorian Reaction while we are historically at it


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really thinking of this fixit as being all the deep background that didn’t make it into the show. Because there wasn’t TIME, right? For it. To make sense. Because wasting precious footage on that would have been silly. As opposed to what we got, which was very important and not at all dumb as dirt. (Sorry. Isn’t “bitterness” one of the stages of grief?)

“I have completed the task you set for me,” Helena told Mrs. Frederic. “The astrolabe has been restored to its prior home.”

“Very good, Agent Wells,” said Mrs. Frederic.

“Agent?” And Helena both enjoyed and felt somewhat ashamed by the way her heart _leapt_ at that designation.

Mrs. Frederic nodded once. “Yes. Yet I fear your services will now best be deployed in a far more… official capacity.” She handed Helena new identification—two sets—plus a badge. Plus a gun.

“I don’t like guns,” Helena protested.

“Secret Service agents carry guns.” Mrs. Frederic’s tone brooked no objection.

“So am I not simply to be a Warehouse agent? I am a member of this Secret Service?”

“For the time being. And I emphasize the _secret_ component of that designation. I continue to suspect that I myself will not remain unaffected by the events that have been set in motion, so I will have to rely heavily on you.”

Helena did not know what to make of that. She looked at her new identification: but none of it was truly new. The name on the Secret Service badge and identification was Helena Wells. But the name on the rest? Emily Hannah Lake. She looked up at Mrs. Frederic. “What is happening? As which of these people am I to live in the world?”

“Both,” Mrs. Frederic said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will need to visit Washington, D.C.,” Mrs. Frederic said. “Your next task, your assignment, will be made clear there.”

“Oh,” Helena said. “Oh.” So this was not the end of her exile, not the end at all. The pain of it was almost physical. “Mrs. Frederic, I need something. Please.”

“What is it?”

“I need…” It was embarrassing. It planted a flag. She might as well be shouting from the rooftops. But she felt, suddenly, as if she had no choice: “I need a photograph of Myka.”

“A photograph?”

“To carry with me,” Helena said. “I just need… I try to think of her face, and…” Embarrassing, frustrating… “Because of the length of _time_ …”

Mrs. Frederic said, “I think that can be arranged.”

Helena suspected she had agreed simply to make her stop talking. She departed South Dakota with no expectation of receiving any such photograph.

But upon her arrival in Washington, she found, in a pocket of her luggage, a small cardboard envelope. And inside the envelope was an image that made Helena sit down, in an empty row of airport chairs, and breathe very carefully so as not to shed tears.

****

Late that night, after her Secret Service briefing, Helena knocked on the door of C.J.’s office and asked her, “Why am I always being made to _wait_?”

“Because you’re good at it? Because you had a hundred years of practice? Hi, by the way. Nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you as well. Your security clearance is sufficiently high that I can speak to you, I’ve been informed, so here it is: I am to sit, undercover, in an apparently minuscule town known as Boone, Wisconsin, and _wait_ for some ring of counterfeiting fraudsters to make a revealing error of some kind. In the first place, I had no idea your Secret Service undertook such investigations, and further, why would anyone headquarter any such a counterfeiting operation in such a godforsaken place?”

“Exactly,” C.J. said.

“Yes, all right, I see,” Helena said. “But this _undercover_ business!”

“It’s the _Secret_ Service.”

“But I am to pretend to be part of a _family_.”

“It probably makes more sense for a family to go to the boonies, Wisconsin, than for random people to just show up there. Why didn’t you ask these questions at your briefing?”

“I’m not actually asking,” Helena said. “I’m just…”

“Complaining.”

“Yes.”

“So who are you pretending to be a family with?”

“Another agent and his daughter. I’m to call him Nate. I don’t know his real name, as he does not know mine. Apparently, that means we are less likely to make mistakes. His daughter’s name, however, is Adelaide.”

“That’s funny,” C.J. said. “I think I actually do know his real name. He used to be on the President’s detail, but his wife died, so he needed assignments that were less… you know. He didn’t want to step in front of the bullets anymore. Because of his daughter.”

“Completely understandable,” Helena said.

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I suppose so. Mrs. Frederic wants me to _wait_ , and this is how she, or someone, has chosen to have me occupy my time.”

“No, I mean with the idea that you sort of… have a daughter.”

“Oh.” And Helena realized that she had not, in fact, thought about the situation in precisely that way.

“Listen. If you ever need… I’m not off the grid, I have a telephone, so don’t hesitate. Okay?”

“Okay,” Helena said, but her mind was now on this idea of a… daughter.

Then C.J. wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at her head.

“Why did you do that?”

“First, because I told you I was going to hit you in the head. Second, I mean it. Call me. Or I’ll come to Wisconsin and throw more stuff at you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Okay, it’s true, I won’t. I don’t have time, plus it’d blow your cover. But I mean it. I don’t care how good you are at waiting, you’re still a _mess_.”

“I am not a mess!”

C.J. threw another wad of paper at her.

****

In Boone, Helena busied herself. She worked at the job she was given as cover. She found that forensic science was quite interesting. She learned more about modernity, about what being “a normal person” might mean in this day and age. The vantage provided by the small town—by being part of “a normal family” in that small town—was fascinating.

She even, to her surprise, enjoyed the time she spent with “Nate” and Adelaide—especially Adelaide, such a bright little creature, eager to learn anything and everything. Adelaide readily accepted Helena’s presence in her life, although she was quite careful to caution, “You better not be trying to replace my mom.” Helena assured her that she had no such intention. She did, however, take it upon herself to correct the horrendous kenpo form that Adelaide was being taught in her so-called self-defense class.

She built a Tesla, just to see if she still could. (She could.) She hid the Tesla, for of course she could not have explained it to Nate and Adelaide… but its existence comforted her. It reminded her of who she really was. She tried to use the Tesla as a reminder rather than the picture of Myka, which she looked at only very occasionally. She tried to keep thoughts of Myka in a very small compartment. She tried not to imagine what might happen when the waiting ended… if the waiting ever ended. She tried very, very hard.

And that was why she was both horrified and elated when, one day, she recognized what she was certain had to be the effects of a curiosity.

She called Mrs. Frederic immediately. Mrs. Frederic sighed and said, “Can’t you just take care of it?”

“How would you like me to do that?” Helena asked. “I have no way of neutralizing an artifact. I also have no way of investigating without arousing suspicion. Without, as they say, _blowing my cover_.”

Mrs. Frederic sighed. “Fine. Call them. But you are not to let on what you are actually doing there.”

“But what in the world am I to say to Myka—I mean, to them? How can I possibly explain my presence in this place without revealing at least some aspect of—”

“Surely the great H.G. Wells can come up with a story,” Mrs. Frederic said.

****

“So do you feel any better?” C.J. asked when Helena emerged from the Oval Office.

Helena said, “I feel better educated, at any rate.”

“He does that to everybody. Maybe you’re not that special a snowflake after all. So what are you going to do?”

“Honestly? I wish I knew. I suppose I’ll go to South Dakota.”

“With no plan? Just go?”

“I don’t know what plan to make. The President developed what seems like a plausible theory, but I have no idea how to begin to implement it.”

“He does that a lot, too. Just ask Leo about the fun of implementing those theories.”

They had their backs to the office door. From behind them, they heard, “H.G.! C.J.! Get your asses in here; I’ve got an idea!”

“I really wish he wouldn’t do that,” C.J. said to Helena. “Because I _will_ have a heart attack one of these days.”

President Bartlet said, “That’d be a shame. Because we’d have to order the extra-long coffin for you, and those are pricey. Congress would never go for it. Anyway, listen, H.G., we’re talking about objects, right? And people and energy and places? See, I was just thinking about the French Revolution.”

“Of course you were, sir,” C.J. said.

“Because H.G. and I were _talking about it_ , Claudia Jean, not because I just sit around and think about the French Revolution.”

“Of course you don’t, sir. Who would do that?”

“I don’t like your tone, Miss Cregg. Remind me to give _you_ a reading list later, too.”

“Is that code for something?”

The President harrumphed. “No, I just think people around here need to read up on the French Revolution. _Anyway_ , I was thinking about the Thermidorian Reaction, and history, and good and evil and poles and do you know what I came up with, H.G.? Do you know what I came up with?”

Helena said, “Not in the slightest, Mr. President.”

“Am I crazy,” President Bartlet said, “or does this situation not scream Foucault’s pendulum?”

C.J. said, “If those are the choices, then I guess I have to say I have never heard a situation scream Foucault’s pendulum any louder than this.”

“That reading list is getting longer by the minute, C.J. But listen, H.G., think about it: the Panthéon, its whole purpose switched by the French Revolution, right? Gotta be some energy there, right? Then the pendulum in 1851, demonstrating the rotation of the earth, swinging back and forth, sucking all that up… or however it is this business works, I don’t know.” He raised his hands, gestured to the right, to the left. “A revolution, then a reaction. Swing one way, swing the other. And the whole time, the Earth keeps on turning, and we keep moving forward.”

Helena felt that it could not be true. It could not be true. It was too elegant, too… she was, at base, staggered by the idea that there might be an answer after all. She tried to speak. “I… if it… so the pendulum itself might…?”

The President chuckled. “This is a really great game. Once you get this evil business taken care of, I’m gonna think up some other things that I bet are artifacts, and you can run around and check them out, okay?”

“That isn’t usually the way it—” Helena began, but then she remembered who she was talking to. “Okay,” she said.

“Good save. In the meantime, go take care of it, okay?”

“Okay,” Helena said again.

He pointed at her. “Oh, and hey, I said that thing about the flowers, before, just to be funny, but don’t ever underestimate the appeal of a state dinner.”

“Yes, sir,” Helena said. “I mean, no, sir, I won’t.”

C.J. looked from one to the other and said, “Here’s a thing I feel fortunate to have learned, over the years: not to bother trying to understand what anybody’s talking about.”

The President agreed, “It’s a fool’s game in this building. Probably most other buildings too.”

“The Warehouse,” Helena tried to contribute. But she could barely form words. There was no guarantee that this strangely brilliant man was correct, but… Helena felt, for the first time in a very long time, the stirrings of genuine hope.

****

In the end, Helena knew, the story she had come up with to explain her presence in Boone had been terrible—in many senses of the word—but effective. Myka’s continually gutted look, her desperate attempts to sway Helena, her heartbreaking final renunciation… Helena found practically every moment wonderful, because she was seeing Myka, was talking to her, was even touching her… yet every moment was torture, because she was lying to Myka _again_ , deceiving her _again_. Pretending to have feelings for Nate, pretending to have come to this place of her own accord. Pretending, paradoxically, not to know that it might look like she was trying to use Adelaide as a replacement for Christina.

“They know me from a very different context,” she had hurriedly told Nate. “I don’t quite know what I will say to them, but I need you to play along.”

All he said was, “Understood.” And proceeded to do a quite amazing job, Helena had to admit. She’d thanked him later, and he’d said, “So you and Agent Bering. Right?”

“How did you—”

“Listen, Emily, undercover is a funny thing. You get to know people in weird ways. And it’s been pretty clear to me that something, or somebody, is always on your mind, and I’m pretty sure I just met that something, or somebody. I don’t know why that’s not happening for you now, and whatever your reason is, I respect that. But this assignment won’t last forever.”

“I sometimes feel as if it might,” Helena said. She was trying—failing—to speak lightly.

“What I’m saying is, I miss my wife. I would do just about anything to have her back, but I can’t.”

“I know,” Helena said. “She is always on _your_ mind. I know. And on Adelaide’s.”

Nate said, “You’re kind of on Adelaide’s mind now. And I think she’s on yours, too.”

Helena had no rebuttal for this; it had become increasingly true. The events of the day had shown her that quite clearly.

He went on, “You need to make a point of reminding her, and yourself, that once this assignment ends, you won’t be around anymore.”

“That is fair,” Helena agreed. She was chagrined at how deeply that agreement cut—not as deeply as lying to Myka, as watching her leave, had done, but there were only so many cuts a person could take before they all ran together into one deep, nearly unhealable wound. And she was terribly afraid that Myka, for all her mournful “fight for him” bravado, would begin, might have already begun, to feel the same way.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 6 tumblr tags: hammering away at the NONSENSE THAT WAS INSTINCT, apologies to all those who were moved by it, but to me it just made zero sense, or rather to make it make any kind of sense one has to bring extratextual pretzel logic to bear on the characters and their motivations, so I figured I would bring other kinds of extratextual contortions to bear, because why the hell not?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning. I’d hammer in the evening. All over this show. I’d hammer out danger; I’d hammer out a warning. Oh, wait, I’ve got a damn hammer. And it is in fact the hammer of justice. And I am hitting this *whap* damn *whap* show *whap* so hard I hope its teeth fall out of its mouth. (Perhaps I have also had a bad day at the office.) And I don’t even like that song.

“You win,” Helena said when she called C.J., which she had always known she would need to do. At some point.

“That is because I am a winner. Do I get a trophy? A medal?”

“You get the satisfaction of being right.”

“Better than a trophy; not quite as good as a medal. What was I right about?”

“I am a mess.”

“I was exaggerating for effect. You’re not really a mess; you’re just not quite, you know, _sane_.”

“All of a piece,” Helena said.

“That sounds pretty gloomy. And yet you’re usually so chipper. What happened?”

So Helena told her: the evidence of the curiosity, her call to Mrs. Frederic, her call to _Myka_ , Myka’s arrival, Myka’s confusion, Myka’s pleas to Helena, Myka’s departure.

“I’m sensing a theme,” C.J. said. “It rhymes with pica, which is I believe a disease in which you eat dirt. Or clay, or maybe it’s ice cubes. Also it’s got something to do with typewriters, but nobody remembers anything about typewriters anymore.”

“How often _do_ you drink to excess?”

“I’m not drunk! I’m just winding down from this day. There was a vote, and a goat, and…”

“Please,” Helena said, and she found herself smiling, “tell me there was a boat. If only to make up for the fact that nothing that makes any sense rhymes with ‘Myka.’”

“There was, in fact, not a boat. But I did wear a coat. That’s something.”

“That is, in fact, something. It’s oddly warm here.”

“I think you might have been drinking, too. And I’m certain your girlfriend Myka’s been drinking, because honestly? What you told her? That is the worst cover story I ever heard. But you say she bought it.”

“She certainly seemed to,” Helena said.

“She certainly has got it bad for you, then, because that _makes no sense_. A cooking class? Have you even met yourself? And I for one don’t understand when all this cooking is supposed to have happened. She didn’t question your extremely questionable sense of any kind of realistic timeline?”

“She was too busy trying to explain to me that I was using Adelaide to replace Christina.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve been careful not to—”

“And in that, she was somewhat correct. Nate reprimanded me tonight as well for having become a bit too… close. With Adelaide. And he was correct too. I made a foolish mistake in the throes of rescuing her: I told her my real name. She had lately been having fun with me, asking, since obviously her father’s name is different, so mine must be as well, and I’ve told her silly names, Ermentrude and the like, and I just… I was overcome. I told her.”

“I think there are worse things you could have done. For example, not rescue her.”

“I know that. It was still foolish.” Helena thought that perhaps that was what had prompted Nate’s caution to her: Adelaide had told him.

“You were trying to handle a lot of things. Particularly that woman whose name doesn’t rhyme with anything sensical.”

“I still love her.”

“I know you do. You wouldn’t sound so destroyed, or maybe I mean drunk, if you didn’t.”

“I was almost surprised. To find that it was really so. It’s been so long, I had begun to think that I was just in love with my idea of her. With my memories of her.”

“With that picture of her you showed me.”

“Yes. With that picture. In which… she looks better. Than she did when I saw her,” Helena said. It was just a tickle of worry, not even sufficient, really, to be called _worry_ with any accuracy. Just a feeling that something was not quite right.

“That’s kind of harsh,” C.J. said. “I’m sure she’s a little older now, as are we all—”

“No, I mean that she looks… pallid. Now. Somewhat.”

“Maybe she’s wasting away because she misses you so much.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” Helena said. She was being facetious. But a part of her did wish it were true, that that could be the explanation. She wondered if she herself could be said to be wasting away.

“Maybe that’s why Mrs. Frederic’s making you wait. So it’ll be that much more dramatic when the time comes for you to swoop back in—and speaking of, are you any closer to wrapping up your actual waiting assignment?”

“Somewhat. We believe they are preparing, within some weeks, to ‘scale up’—Nate’s phrase, not mine. In the event, errors are likely to ensue. Though it does often seem that this will simply carry on, ad infinitum. Or ad nauseam, really.”

“I’m pretty sure it won’t, and then of course something will eventually happen with the other thing. The Warehouse thing.”

“I am coming to think that nothing is going to happen with regard to, as you put it, the Warehouse thing, either. What if Mrs. Frederic was wrong?”

“Sacrilege! We still haven’t determined that she isn’t god.”

“Well, if she’s god, then what does she need me for?”

“Because no god ever needed anybody’s help with anything, right, Elijah?”

“First, I categorically refuse to travel to Mount Horeb.”

“It’d be a short trip, though. There’s one right there in Wisconsin. You could do it in less than forty days, easy.”

This made Helena smile. “I know. It’s very near Madison, and it is billed as the ‘troll capital of the world.’ Thus I refuse to travel to it. Second, I am no Tishbite.”

“You were almost the harbinger of the eschaton, though… and wow, I have clearly been spending way too much time with Toby.”

Helena felt herself oddly overcome that she knew so well not one, but two intelligent, admirable women. She said, “Myka would like you so much.”

“Would she? Then you have to promise to introduce us at some point.”

“I can’t predict whether that will be possible.”

“That’s why I want you to promise to do it.”

“But I can’t make that promise.”

“But you can. Make the promise, Helena.”

“But what if I can’t keep it?”

“You can.” C.J. said it gently. “Make the promise.”

It felt… formal. It felt forbidding; another flag, another shout from the rooftops. Helena was not sure C.J. would even remember that she had asked this of her; she could demur, most likely, without consequence. And yet she found herself saying, with complete sincerity and complete commitment, “I promise.”

****

“But I don’t want to talk to her,” Helena said.

“You always want to talk to her,” C.J. said.

“Not when she sounds like this! Not when I have to hear about how wonderful Pete is! She isn’t herself! I want to talk to _her_ , not to some… _version_ of her!”

“Look, we need to find out if it’s worth trying to get that pendulum, and I’d say she’s your best bet. So _call her_.”

“Fine,” Helena said, jabbing at her telephone. “But if I—oh, hello Myka. We never seem to be able to finish a conversation.”

Myka said, “Well, technology. Why don’t you have your Farnsworth?”

“Because I’m not—never mind. I just need a small favor. Would you be able to find out if there have been any curiosities at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, in Paris, particularly prior to 2010? And also at the Panthéon in 1995, of a similar quality?”

“That’s pretty specific.”

“Yes, it is. There is an object that might perhaps be an artifact, and one has an idea of where it has been…”

“Is that where you are now? In Paris? Is that why we keep getting cut off? Oh, is Giselle French?”

Helena looked at C.J. “Giselle is in fact not French.”

“Poor me,” C.J. said softly. “Always a bridesmaid, never… French.”

“Okay,” Myka said, “let me just get to a terminal. So what are you going to do? In France? With Giselle?”

“I… don’t know? See… things?” Helena shrugged at C.J.

“Well, I know what I’m going to do. Here, I mean. Obviously not in France.” She paused. “Aren’t you going to ask me what?”

“Fine,” Helena said. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going on a date with Pete. Can you believe it?”

Helena muted her telephone, in lieu of throwing it across the room. “Did you hear that?” she demanded of C.J. “Did you _hear_ that?”

“Yes, I heard that. It is _not relevant_. Get an answer, and let’s get moving.”

“When I _become violently ill_ onto your desk, you will regret this.”

“When you _become violently ill_ onto my desk, trust me, _you_ will regret it a lot more than I will.”

“Fine. Myka? Could you perhaps let me know about the curiosities now?”

“Well, this is interesting. You’re right about the pings, but they don’t seem to have been… urgent. I guess whatever the artifact is, it isn’t particularly dangerous.”

“That is good news,” Helena said. She hung up.

“You hung up on her,” C.J. said.

“I _told_ you. I cannot stand to hear her voice.”

“I think you should be a little more understanding. How would you feel if the situation were reversed?”

“If I were moved to engage in a romance with Pete Lattimer? I would feel exactly the same way I do now: as if I could at any moment _become violently ill_ onto your desk.”

****

C.J. and Helena read Josh in on what C.J. was now calling “Operation Giselle.”

Josh said immediately, “I think we need Leo.”

Soon, the three of them were standing in front of Leo’s desk, casting covert “you start” and “no, you start” glances at each other.

Josh finally said, “Here’s the thing, Leo. We need you to get something from France.”

“From France?” Leo said. He took off his reading glasses. “What do we need to get from France? Because I’ll tell you what we’re likely to get from France: disdain.”

Helena said, “That will not be of much help.”

“I think they know that,” Leo told her. “I think that’s why they do it.”

Josh sighed. “Yeah.”

Leo said, “All right, cut to the chase. What do I need to get from France?”

“Foucault’s pendulum,” Helena said.

“Why?”

Helena said, “Because it is too large for me to steal from France.”

“I’m inclined to tell you to give it a shot anyway.”

C.J. said, “Don’t, Leo. She’ll do it, and just imagine the disdain then.”

“All right, fine. Can we get it as some kind of cultural loan? Toby can start making noise about a science exchange.”

Helena said, “We do need as rapid an exchange as possible. And make sure they know we need the original, the one damaged in 2010.”

“All right, all right,” Leo said. “I’ll talk to the ambassador. But H.G., when does that part where you’re useful to us, instead of the other way around, really start to kick in?”

C.J. raised her hand. “Ooh, I know this one: post–Operation Giselle, the President’s going to be focusing all his historical trivia energy on her.”

Leo paused for a moment. Then he said gravely to Helena, “A grateful nation thanks you for your service.”

“Also that paddle thing, right?” Josh said.

Helena had almost forgotten the paddle. “I’ll take it with me to South Dakota,” she said.

“I think the Smithsonian’s gonna want it back at some point, though,” Josh said.

Helena said, “You don’t understand. It needs to be in the Warehouse. That’s why there _is_ a Warehouse.”

Leo asked, “Does this mean we aren’t sending the pendulum back, either?”

Helena thought it best to keep silent. She hoped the others would do the same.

Leo leaned his forehead into his hands. “Josh, go buy a ping-pong paddle, rough it up, and give it to the Smithsonian. Then find somebody who can make us a pendulum.”

“A damaged pendulum,” Helena said quickly.

Leo said, “How about this: I’ll throw it at the three of you. Will that do enough damage, do you think?”

“It weighs sixty pounds,” Josh told him.

“I’ll hire somebody big to throw it at the three of you. Now get out of here. Margaret! I need the French ambassador on the phone!”

They filed out, Helena bringing up the rear. She turned around at the last moment, looked at Leo. He had put his glasses back on. “Thank you,” she said. “I… can’t thank you enough.”

Leo looked over his lenses at her: “That historical trivia thing better be on the level, is all I’m saying to you.” Then he smiled.

****

And so Helena found herself, two weeks later, traveling to South Dakota in the company of a ping-pong paddle and a damaged sixty-pound pendulum, the latter of which, she devoutly hoped, would bring about a Thermidorian Reaction. Or rather, six individual Thermidorian Reactions. She tried to convince herself that they were all of equal importance, that the future of the Warehouse itself was at stake, and that she of all people should understand why that mattered… but of course, if she was being honest with herself, all she cared about was one Reaction, one future, and one person’s understanding.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 7 tumblr tags: everyone is always on the phone in this thing, but it's because they're all over the country, and they have to interact somehow, and then my god those conversations with multiple people, I know fanfic-as-screenplay is generally awful, but I would almost pay cash money to be able to do this in Final Draft, because those dialogue tags are going to be the death of me


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This FINAL PART unfolds in three actlets. Because three is the magic number, probably. (What does it all mean?) Anyway, yeah, guess what, it’s fixed. And okay, I needed the full faith and credit of the U.S. government to backstop the thing, but seriously, if you look closely at the raw material? That material is very raw. As in, I do not like steak tartare. So yeah, I came, I saw, I tried to kick its ass, and it probably got the better of me, but there are a couple decent lines, I hope.

_Actlet 1: Lobsters Thermidorian_

Helena pulled the large rented vehicle to a stop in front of the Warehouse. She had not been here in… a year? At least a year, not since Mrs. Frederic had assigned her to the Secret Service and sent her on her way.

She found that state of affairs surprisingly tolerable. She and the Warehouse had come to a rapprochement of sorts, due to her actions in the original, unreversed timeline, but their accord felt like just that: an agreement to cease hostilities. “Let me help one more time,” she said to the architecture. “Then we shall see where we stand.”

She did not know if it was a sign, but at that moment, Claudia bounded out to greet her. “H.G.!” she shouted. “Thank god you’re here! All I want to do is run around and catch bad guys, but nobody’ll go with me! Tell me you’re here to be my new partner and that we can go blow things up!”

Claudia seemed to be something very like her normal self… but how could that be? Surely she too had been affected by the same forces that held Myka and Mrs. Frederic in their thrall. But then again, Helena might not have known about the effects on Myka and Mrs. Frederic if she had not known both of them so well. So: better safe. She said, “I’m delighted to see you as well, darling. Perhaps you could help me with something I am carrying in the cargo space? It’s just in the back here.”

Helena opened the large crate that held the pendulum. “It’s quite heavy,” she said. “I imagine you can’t lift it.”

Claudia reached for it, as Helena had known she would. “Man, it _is_ heavy…” She made as if to lift, then her hands slipped. “Joshua,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“My brother Joshua. I haven’t… why do I feel like I haven’t thought about him in ages? It’s like there’s something I need to tell him.”

Helena hoped this was significant in some way. “In any case,” she said, “I will still need some help with this. Perhaps you could—”

Claudia was already using her telephone. “I don’t care if you don’t want to. Get out here and help!” She told Helena, “All Steve really wants to do anymore is sit on the floor in Artie’s office and drink chai.  He says that now that he’s experienced a sense of oneness with the universe, there’s really not much point to anything anymore. But he’s coming out to help anyway, because he knows I will _kick his ass_ otherwise.”

Indeed, Steve Jinks appeared moments later. “I was _having thoughts_ , Claudia!”

“Hello, Mr. Jinks,” Helena said.

“H.G.!” he exclaimed. “Please, I thought you had finally started calling me Steve. And I really do want to thank you again for being part of it.”

“Part of it,” Helena repeated. “Oh. Yes, Myka mentioned it to me: your defining moment. I’m so glad I could… contribute. If you would be so kind as to help me with something in return? It’s just back here…”

“That was weird,” Steve said after he’d touched the pendulum. “I feel kind of restless.”

“Interesting,” Helena said.

“I’ll go get Pete,” Claudia said. “This is a job for him and his guns.” She made as if to go, then turned around and said, “Pete’s kind of touch and go these days, H.G. We’ll hope he’s more touch right now, because it’s early in the day, but there’s kind of no predicting.”

“What’s the matter with Pete?” Helena asked Steve.

“Well, everybody has to walk their own path, don’t they. And Pete’s path lately has involved… celebrating. He found out how much he loves the Warehouse, and how much he loves Myka, and I think he forgot just how much he loves one other thing.”

“Pete is drinking,” Helena said. She had been thinking horrible thoughts about him, horrible, condemnatory thoughts, and this was obviously the universe, or perhaps Mrs. Frederic, punishing her for them. She would not have wished this on Pete. He truly was a decent man, when himself.

She had to work very hard to hold that thought when Pete emerged from the Warehouse, for he did so while holding hands with Myka. Every muscle in her body screamed _knock him down!_ Every fiber of her heart screamed _my god it’s Myka!_ And every thought in her head, all of them sounding like they worked at the White House, screamed _get this evil business taken care of!_

“Steve,” Helena said. “What is your best mantra?”

“I like the Pavamana. It starts, ‘from the unreal lead me to the real,’ and then—”

“That will do nicely.” _From the unreal lead me to the real_ , she thought. _From the unreal lead me to the real_. She said it aloud: “From the unreal lead me to the real.”

“Helena!” Myka said upon catching sight of her. “When did you get back from France?”

Helena turned to Steve. “From the unreal lead me to the real,” she said. “And what is the next phrase?”

“From the dark lead me to the light.”

“Appropriate.” She said to Myka, who was now tucked under Pete’s arm, “I returned some time ago. You and Pete may wish to take a look at what I discovered there.”

“What is it?” Myka asked.

“Large and heavy,” Helena said.

“Then I am your man!” Pete said. “Get out of the way, pansy boy.”

“He’s like that kind of a lot now,” Steve remarked. “As the only queer person around here, I find it a little offensive.”

Pete touched the pendulum—but only briefly. He leaned over, touched it, then stood up and pulled his fingers through his hair, arranging it back into the configuration that Helena was more accustomed to see.

“I like it better the other way, honey,” Myka said.

“From the unreal,” Helena almost-snarled.

“You’re not supposed to say it like that,” Steve told her.

“Steve,” Helena said. “Please shove Myka into the rear of this vehicle at once.”

“I don’t think I’ll do that.”

“Fine. Myka, if you would be so kind as to help your…”

“Boyfriend?”

“I don’t care what you call him,” Helena said, and wished she meant it. “Touch the damn thing!”

“Well, okay,” Myka said, moving next to Pete, “but around here, things are sometimes artifacts, so…”

She reached into the crate, and Helena might really have preferred, at that point, to faint and _not know_.

Myka jerked backward. She looked up at Helena. “You…” she said, and there was something, something in her eyes, in her voice…. then she shook her head and apparently erased whatever thought she had had, for when she looked back to Helena, blandness had returned to her gaze.

And yet: Pete then tried to put his arm back around Myka. She frowned. “I told you, Pete, not at work.” And this time, Helena noted with a strangely jittery sense of comfort, Myka did not laugh.

Helena suspected that getting Artie and Mrs. Frederic to touch the pendulum would be more difficult, as they were most likely aware, or would suspect, that it had properties. Steve said that they had been spending much time both in and near the Dark Vault… that suggested to Helena that she had perhaps arrived just in time.

In the end, it was indeed a complicated endeavor involving stringing up the pendulum, bringing Artie and Mrs. Frederic into the correct location, Helena releasing the pendulum, then the rest of them contriving to pull the two remaining members of this particular Reign of Terror away from its swing just in time for it to touch but not kill them. Claudia had been willing to knock one or both of them down (“Artie’s plenty padded!”), but less _active_ heads had prevailed.

The effect on Mrs. Frederic was the most pronounced. The moment the pendulum brushed her arm—well, at any rate, the moment she stood up after being tackled by Pete—she said, “H.G. Wells! Is this your doing?”

Helena stepped into the center of the aisle from the shadow in which she had been hiding. “I did as you said,” she told Mrs. Frederic. “At least, that was my main intent. I tried to wait until the right time.”

“I have never been more pleased to see anyone, and that is saying a great deal. Nor more proud of anyone, and that, too, is saying a great deal.”

Helena smiled. She tried not to pay attention to the attention that Myka was paying to Pete, still on the floor.

****

Mrs. Frederic began immediately to repair the damage she had done. “I had intended, among other things, to move the Warehouse,” she confessed to Helena, “so that it would remain under my sole control and not pass to Claudia.”

She also made clear, however, that the emotional effects of the evil itself, and of the “memories” the others had seen in the Table, would persist longer than the few days that had passed. “Evil is insidious,” she said. She looked even more somber than usual.

“Why does everyone think they must _tell_ me that?” Helena asked. “Honestly, I of all people.” Then: “I need to talk to Myka.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Frederic said. “But I do note that talking to Agent Bering is apparently something you have been doing behind my back.”

“I… had to. In my defense, she called me first. After Boone.”

“You certainly did not have to _answer_ when she called.”

“Of course I did! Once we… once that _happened_ , I couldn’t very well say that I wouldn’t speak to her again. Also, if we had not been in contact, I could never have discerned the real problem. _You_ certainly didn’t know.”

“That is a fair point,” Mrs. Frederic said. “You have done a great deal in my service.”

“I still refuse to go to Mount Horeb,” Helena said with a small laugh.

“Clearly that is a joke you have with someone.”

“It is,” Helena said. “It actually is.”

****

When Helena found Myka, she was not in Pete’s company. Helena told herself she could have dealt with the other circumstance… but she suspected that Steve’s mantra would have received an even more vigorous workout.

“What’s going on?” Myka asked.

“It is a long story. I think Mrs. Frederic will tell you more of it as time passes. I just wanted to let you know that if you should want to talk, or for anything at all, you should feel free to call me.”

“Call? Won’t you be here? Aren’t you staying?”

Helena said, “I’ve promised to undertake some… tasks. In Washington. But I have a telephone.” She chuckled. “I am on the grid.” And then she said what she needed to say: “You should know three things. First, I was never with Nate. That was an undercover assignment. Second, I was never with anyone named Giselle. That was, quite literally, a misunderstanding. This is knowledge you should have, as you move forward. As we both do. Because the third thing you need to know is this: I am no longer waiting. I waited so long, and that is not what I am doing anymore.”

“I’ll miss you,” Myka said.

There was something so close to being achingly familiar in her eyes that Helena almost broke. Almost. “I’ll miss you too,” she said.

****

President Bartlet was thrilled that he would in fact be able to send Helena out as his own personal artifact hunter.

“Laser-focused artifact hunter, that is. And on your days here in town you can just go to the Smithsonian and check stuff out. That ping-pong paddle can’t have been the only thing there with mojo, right?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t, Mr. President,” Helena said. So she went to Detroit for an original piece of a particular Model T; she went to Los Angeles for a particular canister of film; she went to Paris again for the gnomon from a particular sundial.

She spoke to Myka on the telephone. She told Myka that she had rented an apartment. In an area known as Adams Morgan.

“Trendy,” Myka said.

“Not really,” Helena told her. “Perhaps in years past.”

“Well, I haven’t been to D.C. in a while.”

Helena left that one alone.

It did take time. But at last there came a conversation in which Myka said, “I don’t know what was wrong with me. I look back on it, and it was like I was under the influence of something, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. I… Helena, I forgot.”

“What did you forget?” Helena asked.

“You. I forgot you.”

“You didn’t forget me,” Helena told her. “You knew who I was.”

Myka sighed. “Yes, I knew who you were. But I didn’t know who you were _to me_.”

Helena said, with a small hiccup, “Do you know now?”

Myka did not answer directly. “Mrs. Frederic has been making some weird… I guess they’re amends. She told me that she gave you a picture of me, before you went to Boone.”

“She did,” Helena said.

“Do you still have it?”

Helena wanted to say something flippant; it felt like planting flags again, standing on the rooftop, screaming into a driving wind. She said, “Yes. Of course I do.”

Myka said softly, “I didn’t have one of you. I should have had one of you.”

“I suspect you would have wondered why you had it,” Helena said with a small laugh. But inside, she was now singing into that driving wind.

********

_Actlet 2: The State Dinner_

One day, the President called Helena to the Oval Office. “State dinner,” he said.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“We’re having a state dinner in a couple weeks. Do you remember what I told you about state dinners?”

“Ah… yes. I do.”

“Good. Make sure she’s got a nice gown before you haul her out here, but anyway, I’m happy to be able to help you out with your love life. That’s all.”

****

On the telephone that night, Myka said to Helena, “I think Pete—regrets it. That he and I aren’t. That I didn’t ever really.”

“Do you regret it?” Helena asked.

Myka sighed. “Honestly? Maybe a little. It would be easier.”

Helena held her telephone away from her. She thought it would be useful for it to explode and put her out of her misery.

Then Myka went on: “But I don’t usually go for the easy option.”

“Oh,” Helena said. “In that case, I would like to issue an invitation. Or rather, convey one. There is to be a state dinner in two weeks’ time.”

****

Myka’s plane landed mere hours before the dinner was to begin. They needed to hurry to dress, once they reached Helena’s apartment, but Myka was distracted by an enormous flower arrangement in the middle of Helena’s dining table.

“They’re for you,” Helena said, following that quickly with, “but they aren’t from me.”

“Who are they from?”

“Read the card.”

Myka read, “‘I wanted to thank you personally for your important work. Looking forward to seeing you at the dinner tonight. Jed Bartlet.’ You know, Helena, sometimes…”

“What? He’s quite right; the work you do _is_ important. We should all thank you for it.”

Myka just looked at her. Then she shook her head and smiled. Helena tried and failed to keep from feeling quite warm.

****

President Bartlet made a point of walking over to Helena and Myka after dinner.

Helena was pleased to see that Myka was in no way cowed—but of course, she was part of the real Secret Service.

Myka said, “Thank you so much for the flowers, Mr. President.”

“Well, I did want to say how much I appreciate you. Plus, I figured H.G. here probably needed all the help she could get. She doesn’t really have much game, as her attempt to bag Edgar Allan Poe’s shot glass showed.”

Helena sighed. “Mr. President, no matter how much you wish it were so, Edgar Allan Poe’s shot glass is not an artifact.”

“You won’t be saying that about the next one.”

“Is that a threat or a promise, sir?” Helena asked.

“Anyway, Agent Bering, Myka, before my employee here started being insubordinate, I was saying thanks. I know about a lot of stuff you’ve done, for example what happened at Yellowstone. You did _all of us_ a great service there, I’ll tell you, didn’t she, H.G.?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re going to express an appropriate amount of appreciation, aren’t you, H.G.?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, good. Now get out of here. You look so happy I think you’re gonna scare people.”

Myka turned to Helena. “What in the world has _happened_ to you? I have never heard you say ‘sir’ so much in my life.”

“He is the President of the United States!” Helena protested. “And he is brilliant! And also possibly not fully sane, so we actually, as C.J. likes to point out, have something in common.”

“When do I get to meet C.J.?”

“Right now, if you like. If you don’t mind forgoing the entertainment provided by the string quartet.”

****

The first thing C.J. said when she saw Helena at her office door was, “You were supposed to _take care of this_. He was supposed to be all happy because you would find his little postcards from the past and stroke his ego and tell him how right he was. You couldn’t just make something up? ‘Yes, Mr. President, it is an artifact that makes people get drunk’?”

Helena said, “Wouldn’t it be what was put _into_ Edgar Allan Poe’s shot glass that makes people get drunk? In any case, as you never tire of pointing out, I don’t think on my feet very well.”

C.J. shook her head. “You _let me down_ , Helena.”

“Don’t say that so loudly. I have a guest whom I wish to impress.” She stepped aside and let Myka enter the office.

“Hi,” Myka said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

C.J. said, “Do not get me started on all that I’ve heard about you. We would be here for _weeks_ , because I’m not sure I can really _synopsize_ that one’s flowery prose. But what I will say is that your picture doesn’t do you justice, and I am really happy that you’re here and I’m getting to meet you finally.”

Myka said, “And I’m sorry we didn’t meet earlier—Helena said you were supposed to be at the dinner too.”

“Yeah, I was supposed to go, but there was a thing… you don’t need to care about the thing.” C.J. looked at Helena. Helena grinned. “Because you just need to… seriously. You are freaking me out by smiling so much. Go home, and we’ll get together for lunch or something. _Tomorrow_. Okay? Myka, you are lovely. And the salience of that is not lost on me, but Helena, _get out of here_.”

“Everyone keeps saying that!” Helena protested.

“Possibly for a reason, snowflake, grasshopper, Elijah, all the things I’ve ever called you. Jesus.”

“That’s new.”

“I’m not _calling_ you that.”

“Well, if you say so. But I _have_ brought good news at various points, you have to admit.”

“My god, Myka, how do you _put up_ with this?”

Myka, seemingly nonplussed, said, “I haven’t had the opportunity to do much with it at all. Recently.”

C.J. said, “That is both a shame and really, really fortunate.”

“I’m gathering that.”

After further ribbing, as Myka left, Helena turned back to C.J. “You yourself are waiting,” she said.

C.J. looked at her goldfish. “Yes,” she said. “I am.” She looked up at Helena. “But you’re really giving me some hope. It’s annoying, so stop it. And seriously, if you smile like this from now on? I’m putting a bag over your head.”

********

_Actlet 3: Mirari Ad Infinitum_

They stood awkwardly, in their formalwear, in Helena’s small apartment. Helena leaned against the kitchen counter. Myka stood by the sofa.

“So,” Myka said. “No luck with Edgar Allan Poe’s shot glass, huh? You didn’t tell him about the pen?”

“I don’t think he wanted to hear about the pen. He was very excited about the shot glass idea.”

“You’re very sweet with him. You’re sweet with all of them.”

Helena said, “They have been extremely important to me. I imagine Mrs. Frederic brought me here in the first place so that I would someday have resources. When I needed them. And they are endlessly stimulating. You met C.J.; she so reminds me of you…”

“She’s taller than I am.”

“Not by that much. And you met Leo and Josh, who can appear to be a _comedy team_ while nevertheless averting every national and international crisis imaginable. And of course the President, who… I really did not have the expectation that he would be… although clearly, part of why he speaks with me so often is that I am a bit of a historical curiosity myself. He loves to test my so-called classical education, then supplement it with reading lists. He will break into Latin, simply to see if I am paying attention.”

“He clearly thinks you hung the moon. He clearly loves you. They all do.”

“I don’t know that that’s—”

“And do you know the difference between them and me?”

“I know several differences—”

“The difference is, I _know_ you hung the moon.”

“Stop,” Helena said. “I can’t. It’s too—” She took a shaky breath.

“Okay,” Myka said. “Let me try something.” She walked close to Helena, slowly, carefully. She leaned close, kissed Helena’s cheek, then leaned back. “Placetne?” she asked.

Helena laughed. It released her. “You are perfect,” she said. “Alas, you will find, as the President has, that my Latin is old and rusty. As I am. But I will say: placet.” And she in turn leaned to Myka, placed a kiss on her neck, breathed into her ear, “Placetne?”

Myka slid her arms around Helena’s waist. She kissed Helena then, on the mouth, and Helena wished that the span of time spent waiting would just dissolve, that her misdeeds would fade, that they could simply be two people, two people with such love for each other. “Doesn’t work that way,” she could imagine the President saying. 

Then Myka was saying, very close to Helena’s ear, “Placet. Placet mihi, you constant fool.” Helena heard a small clutch in Myka’s voice as she went on to say, “Ignosce mihi.” And, “I should say that one in English, just so we’re clear: forgive me. Please forgive me. I would never have wanted to hurt you.”

“I never wanted to hurt you either. The things I made you believe about me—the lies I told. What can I say to that but mea culpa, as long as we are saying such things?” But now Helena’s arms made their way around Myka, and just like that—Helena realized it with a jolt—they were, in fact, _in each other’s arms_. “And maybe it works this way,” she said.

“What way?” Myka asked.

“Maybe we will just find things as they happen.” She held Myka closer. “Like this. Here we are, like this.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Myka said. “But right now, like this? If it works this way? I want it. I want it, and I want you, and I don’t know who that person was who thought she ever wanted anything but this.”

“I never wanted anything but this.” Helena kissed Myka then, kissed her soft, kissed her hard, kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, and it built and became and in one way it felt _just like that_ but in another it felt like every minute of waiting had added heat and light.

Then her teeth caught Myka’s lip, and Myka said “ow” and pulled back.

Helena was terrified that she had broken the spell, that now some wall would rise, that she had destroyed everything with just one careless, errant press of her mouth…

But Myka smiled and said, “Be careful with those teeth.”

Helena said, “I have never been more sorry. Shall I try again?”

“Well,” Myka said, “I’m pretty sure the President gave you a direct order. Something about expressing appreciation? So yeah, I think that basically it’ll be treason if you don’t try again.”

“No one wants that; treason is a capital offense, they would hang me or whatever they did to that Benedict Arnold chap there will be an artifact I must chase related to that somehow…” Helena knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t think very clearly, because Myka was kissing her forehead, her hairline, her eyelashes.

“You know something?” Myka asked as she moved her lips from place to place on Helena’s face, her neck, now her shoulders… when had her shirt disappeared?

“What?”

“Washington has made you even more hyperverbal than usual. I love you, Helena, so I say this with love: _shut up_.”

“I love you too,” Helena said.

“I’m pretty sure I told you to shut up.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 8 tumblr tags: oh my god, I have ended on a number of parts that is not a multiple of 3, perhaps it is not the magic number after all, also sorry for the sucky Latin, which I'm sure is so wrong that its wrongness can be seen from space, (blame Wheelock), but you can't do West Wing without Latin, and I am a sucker for a mea culpa at any rate, and also placetne/placet, which if you know what that is stolen from, come sit by me, also I am sitting here pleased with myself for Lobsters Thermidorian, because lobsters, right?, we all know about lobsters and mating, don't we?, and also I called back to Studio, in which HG knows how to make Lobster Thermidor, I am insufferable

**Author's Note:**

> original part 1 tumblr tags: I don't know why this is happening, but the person responsible is ON THE LIST, (nothing happens on the list), I hope to get more firmly in the pocket wrt character voices as this proceeds, also I have never spent a really long time in HG's head, so this feels very odd


End file.
